Last Sunday, we heard the beginning of the part of Matthew’s Gospel called the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon takes place in chapters five, six, and seven of this Gospel. St Augustine wrote a profound commentary on this sermon, and in the first lines of this commentary he describes it as “a perfect standard of the Christian life”. In a very real sense, this part of Jesus’s teaching provides us with a perfect guide regarding what it means to be a follower of Christ, that is,

In today’s opening prayer, we ask that we may “honour God with all our mind, and love everyone in truth of heart.” This sounds routine, living the two great commandments of Jesus, loving God above all, and our neighbour as ourselves. Yet it is hard to do, because to do it involves dragging our mind away from ourselves. Likewise, we ask in our prayer that we may love everyone in truth of heart. The truth of heart that the prayer is talking about comes from a genuine attention

There are moments in history when everything changes, yet almost no one realises it at the time. Life seems merely to continue—until, later on, we look back and see that a door had closed forever and another had opened, irreversibly. Saint Matthew presents just such a moment at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. “When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee” (Mt 4:12). At first glance, it seems like a simple narrative transition. In reality, it

The prophet Isaiah sees a new vocation for Israel. Having been the servant of God, Israel is now also to become the light of the nations. But what does that mean in practice? Does it mean that the remarkable perseverance of Israel will be held up for the nations to see and admire? Will the nations now at last pay attention to the tiny nation of Israel because it is now clear that they have the might of God on their side? These sectarian thoughts do not cohere with all els